Don’t be fooled by the ribbon-cutting. When the PPP/C government pumps $496.3 million into a state-owned water bottling plant, they aren’t thinking about hydration—they’re thinking about the horizon. And on that horizon, they see a fortune.
These guys are nothing if not cunning. While we’re debating taps and imports, they’re playing a game of generational theft. Look at the global trend lines: water is the new oil. The UN warns of catastrophic shortages within decades. Freshwater will become the most precious commodity on earth. So why is this government, which cannot even keep the lights on or the roads paved, suddenly so eager to get into the bottling business?
Because they aren’t in it for the long haul. They are in it for the flip.
Mark my words—and let this be the Anthony James prediction of the day—in a few years, once the taxpayer-funded infrastructure is built, the supply chains established, and the “strategic national asset” is humming, one of their well-connected friends will purchase this operation. It will be sold off at a fire-sale price, disguised as “private sector efficiency” or “divestment.” And just like that, a crony will become a billionaire off the back of the Guyanese people.
This is the playbook. We’ve seen it before. First it was cattle—state lands leased to party loyalists for pennies. Then it was poultry, with government contracts funneled to friendly farms. Then construction, where every major road and bridge went to the same inner circle. Infrastructure contracts followed, bloated and opaque. Now it’s water. They are systematically seizing control of every basic necessity of life, not to provide it, but to privatize it later for personal profit.
He who controls Guyana’s drinking water in the future will not be a public servant—he will be a billionaire. And that billionaire will not have earned it through innovation or risk. He will have inherited it through political patronage, subsidized by the $496.3 million we just approved.
The hapless private sector has to cheer, although the government will now be competing directly with them. They are left with few options. Too many of them already benefit from the corrupt PPP. They are muzzled. So they must cheer, even though they know the government is laying the groundwork for their eventual demise. They are clapping for their own destruction.
We are watching the slow, deliberate capture of our national resources. Water should be a human right, not a future asset for a political financier. But under this administration, like land, gold, oil, agriculture–every drop is being priced, packaged, and pre-sold to the highest bidder—and the bidder is always a friend.
We must not applaud this distraction. The government is not building resilience; they are building a golden parachute. And we, the taxpayers, are paying for the silk.
